Cautionary Tales For Children
Wonderful witty poems great for reading to your children. The stories and rhymes will stay with them for the rest of their lives.

Research has shown how important YOU are to your children and how as a dad the things you do, and keep on doing, really count, whether you live with them, or you are a single dad and are only able see them once a month, once a week or more, what you do really matters. This site is dedicated to all dads but will be of special relevance to the single dad. Remember, you are half the reason your children exist and they need you whether you live with them or not. As their dad, you have what it takes to make their lives successful and fulfilling no matter how often you see them. This site is about all the positive things that we as parents have to offer our children.

Feather Quills

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Easy to make, real writing, Magical Feather Quills

If you want a quill like the one Harry Potter and his Professors of Magic use, now you don’t have to buy an owl, catch a hippogryph or sneak up on a phoenix, all you need is right here on dadcando. This project won’t take you much more than 20 or 30 minutes and you’ll be able to say (as they always do) that no creatures were harmed in the making of your quill (mythical or otherwise).. . .
Download, print out and follow these instructions which will show you how to make any of the quills. You will need one set of instructions and then one template printable for each quill you want to make. The instructions and all the template printables are available in both A4 and US Letter size downloads just click on the one you need to download it.

Feather quill instructions

Phoenix Feather Quill template printable

The Phoenix is a sacred firebird bird with beautiful gold and red plumage. It lives for 500 years but before it dies, it builds itself a nest of cinnamon twigs and sets fire to them so that both nest and bird burn fiercely and are reduced to ashes, from which a new, young phoenix arises. The Phoenix is able to regenerate when hurt or wounded by a foe, thus being almost immortal and invincible. As you’ll probably already know, phoenix tears can heal wounds.. . .
What you write with your phoenix feather quill should be fiery and true, because you never know; your words might live on forever.

Snowy Owl Feather Quill printable template

The Snowy Owl, just like Harry’s Hedwig, (Bubo scandiacus) is a large owl of the owl family Strigidae. The adult male is virtually pure white, but females and young birds have some dark scalloping; the young are heavily barred, and dark spotting may even predominate. Its thick plumage, heavily-feathered feet, and coloration render the Snowy Owl well-adapted for life north of the Arctic Circle.. . .
The Snowy Owl is a particularly powerful and nomadic bird, used to flying long distance and settling in a range of habitats, hence it’s suitability for carrying post and messages for all types of magical folk. . . .
When writing with an Owl Feather Quill, your writing should be intelligent, honest and true, because an owl always knows where it is going.

Hippogryph Feather Quill printable template

When Mare and Griffin meet and mate
Their offspring share a curious fate.
One half is Horse with hooves and tail,
The rest is Eagle, claws and nail.

According to Thomas Bulfinch's Legends of Charlemagne, the Hippogryph is a strange beast indeed: Like a griffin, it has the head of an eagle, claws armed with talons, and wings covered with feathers, but the rest of its body is that of a horse. It is a very rare creature, as it is the product of the union between a griffin and a horse, and as everyone knows, the griffin regards horses as prey. The Hippogryph is able to fly as fast as lightening but is easier to tame than a griffin, making it suitable as both a steed and a pet.. . .
When writing with this quill, approach your text with respect, while you may scribble as fast as lightening, with a Hippogryph Feather Quill the pen truly is mightier than the sword.

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We can't wait to see the pictures of what you’ve made. Kids love it when the things you made together are published, so go on upload a picture of what you made. It's easy, just go to your dadcando My Page and upload your pictures into this project and we'll put one of them right here in the project picture gallery.

To give you the higest quality and the shortest download time, most of our downloads are supplied in Adobe PDF format for your convenience. Adobe Reader is standard on most computers, but if you do not have it, you can get the most up to date version free from Adobe, here.

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Modelling Equipment

This is your guide on how to easily make your models look great using a few simple tools and supplies. If you get the right glue and paint, then you can make a fabulous model out of more or less anything. Here are few tips about getting the right stuff, so that you won’t be wasting your time waiting for rubbish glue to dry or paint that doesn’t cover the surface properly. One of the things that frustrated me as a child was the rubbish stuff we kids had to use when doing any kind of craft work.

Professionals and art studios use a whole range of proper graphic products: Performance glues (hot melt glues, double sided sticky tape, and Spray Mount), really sharp knives (scalpels), dense (permanent markers and lightweight but stiff mounting boards, (foamboard) that are now all available cheaply on the web or every in DIY shops, and all make it possible to make more or less anything and make it look superb. So really there is no reason to waste the valuable time you spend with your kids trying to make things using feeble glues that take forever to dry, felt pens that rub off on your hands, or useless cardboard that doesn’t fold right. Get a few nice bits and pieces and make your place an Aladdin’s Cave of wonderful making and doing things.

The idea of making things with or for your kids is that you work on these projects together. For some of the more complex ones you will be doing most of the work, but as long as they are participating then they are learning and getting confidence from seeing how to solve problems and follow a plan. Some of the projects especially the paper folding and maybe even the easier pompom ones are suitable for children to tackle on their own, but whatever their skill level they should never be left alone with potentially dangerous equipment.

Craft knives and scalpels are very sharp and should never be used by a child, or left unattended where children are making stuff.

Glue guns get very hot and the melted glue is not only very hot but also very sticky. Children should not be allowed to use a glue gun unsupervised and if they are using it under supervision they need to be shown which bits get hot and learn how to use the glue without getting the hot melt glue on their fingers. If a burn occurs get the glue off the finger as quickly as possible and run under cold water for at least five minutes. Turn your glue gun off after using it and put it to the back of the work surface out of reach, while it cools down. Make sure the wire isn’t trailing anywhere that might get tripped over. (All sounds like common sense, but we have had every type of minor accident!)

Superglue (cynoacrylate) sticks skin together permanently. In the hands of adults this feature can be tricky, in the hands of children superglue is downright dangerous and children should never be allowed to use it under any circumstances.

Permanent markers are just that; permanent, and will mark clothes, permanently, best to wear old clothes or an apron when doing painting and using permanent markers. They also mark table tops and carpet rather nicely and will bleed through one layer of normal paper to mark a table top underneath, so always put down another sheet of paper under your work, if using a marker to draw on paper.

Featured Project

MicroCards
MicroCards are
miniature playing cards that can be printed out on one sheet of paper.
Just cut them out and play on the go!